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Will Over-Population become a threat to Civilization?

Will Over-Population become a threat to Civilization?

  • Yep!

    Votes: 32 43.2%

  • Nope!

    Votes: 26 35.1%

  • Possibly?

    Votes: 16 21.6%
  • Total voters
    74
Empirica said:
Mahatma Gandhi: "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not for every man's greed"
https://www.goalcast.com/2017/03/20/top-20-inspiring-mahatma-gandhi-quotes/

Pew Research Center: "Today’s scientists are more likely than the general American public to be concerned about population growth"
Scientists more worried than public about world?s growing population | Pew Research Center

What say you!
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As our population has grown, I have watch farmland disappear beneath concrete, asphalt, shopping malls and centers come, suburbs and sub divisions take over once good, rich farmland. Our loss of farmland continues at an amazing rate. If not for hybrid seed and other innovations, we'd probably have a ton of hungry, starving people with just the population we have now.

Probably only a person born and raised on a farm would worry about the disappearing farmland. But to grow food and raise animals to eat, land is required. Unless we can somehow come up with chemicals in a pill to replace food, then yes, population is a problem.
 
I recall the movie "Soylent Green" starring Charleston Heston. It was a futuristic world that is so over populated that they were forced to convert the dead into food for the living. Even though "Soylent Green" is just a movie, it is closer to reality than many of us care to imagine. The Arctic Ice Caps are melting and the oceans are filling up. Global warming is causing freakish changes in the weather. In a few years many coastal cities near major waters will disappear. I do believe that our species should stop and think before having many children per family. China has over a billion people with India right behind it. There are 7.7 billion people in the world today and the number keeps growing.
 
Over population is already a threat to most third world countries...Having been to a lot of third countries and seeing it up close and personal it is definitely a threat to the economy and the environment.
When over population happens in third world countries those people try to flee to other more Prosperous countries like the US and Europe.
 
People are workin' and studyin' more an' fuggin' less an' fewer women are gettin' knocked up. The world population could start shrinking at some point.
 
Not going to happen. This was the last failed consensus doomsday prediction.
 
Rexedgar said:
A good global conflict will nip this in the bud, imo!
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Casper said:
Or a killer virus that is airborne.
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What would be worse?
(1) World War-3 using 21st Century WMD.
(2) A global pandemic like no other in human history.
(3) The balance of global 'resources' and 'population' hitting a tipping point.

Jetboogieman said:
Global population growth is beginning to level off, however Africa will continue to have high growth rates for the foreseeable future, but those have begun to fall as well.

Global population could level off, barring some sort of catastrophe, anywhere between 10 to 12 billion people, there are some estimates that find this number too optimistic, it could be lower than that if birth rates continue to plummet.

I am afraid I am not educated enough to know how this manifests itself in terms of global resources and the worst case scenarios here, but I do know that it would appear the worst case scenarios thought of the 80s and 90s when it comes to global overpopulation won't come to pass, we ain't gonna get Mega City One or Coruscant because well, there'll never be enough people for it.
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"Plummeting birth rates" is based on the fact that mothers are having fewer babies.

But; population continues to increase simply because there are more and more women having babies.

ie; when world population was one billion and 8+children per mother was the norm, we now have 8 mothers having 2.5 babies each which totals 20 children.

Considering all this along with the infant mortality rate and life expectancy of early 19th Century compared to the 21st Century; it's obvious that the population is indeed, still growing.

gulfman said:
Thank goodness for abortion,inner city crime,starvation,aids,cancer,obesity.We should be ok for some time.
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All this and still yet the population grows and spreads throughout the planet.

DaveFagan said:
It already is. /
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So; what do you believe Western Civilization should do to save itself Dave?

Masterhawk said:
The notion that the world will be overpopulated is nothing new. It dates back at least to the early 19th century when Thomas Malthus published An Essay on the Principle of Population. Back in the day, the world population had just reach 1 billion. The population in Europe and the US were climbing faster than ever due to falling death rates. Before the industrial revolution, birth rates were high but so were death rates (lots of kids died early). Improved medicine and better sanitation standards was largely responsible for bringing down the death rate. Thomas Malthus knew that this was responsible for bringing down the death rate; he wasn’t an idiot. He knew that the industrial revolution increased food production but he also feared that population growth would outpace it. He proposed either decreasing the birth rate or increasing the death rate to prevent what came to be called a malthusian catastrophe. Much later, he was proven to be wrong when food production rose quicker than population and living standards rose for all.

In the 1960s, a man by the name of Paul Ehrlich predicted that the world was on the brink of overpopulation. In 1968 he published a book called The Population Bomb which begins with this quote.

Then, when that prediction failed, he published its sequel: The Population Explosion.

Between the times of Malthus and Ehrlich, living standards rose tremendously, all while population grew. When Malthus said these things, the world population was only 1 billion. When Ehrlich said then, the population was 3.61 billion. Now, it's a little over 7.7 billion and yet, we are no closer to a malthusian catastrophe than we were back then.
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And you believe this is an indication that "overpopulation" will never be a problem?

LouC said:
I voted POSSIBLY.

It is a possibility that overpopulation by humans could threaten Human Civilization as a whole.
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Okay.....but who or what has the power to stop it?

Nap said:
It is possible, but by the time that it becomes an actual issue rather than a theory we will likely have expanded into space or some catastrophic event will solve the issue before it becomes a problem.
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So it's your contention that the fate of civilization is dependent on science winning a race against an obscure deadline?!

I think we might be in agreement on this one.....And if you were POTUS what would you do about it Nap?
 
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So; what do you believe Western Civilization should do to save itself Dave?


The current destruction of the Planet's resources must be stopped. Birth control needs UN attention and action. The Planet will require Greening and balanced agricultural development and balanced fish farming of oceans on a WorldWide scale for food sources. No nukes, no carbon, give all the billionaires one island and make them and all their money live there. Renewable energy resources are a must. More bicycles, no cars. If people like big cities, put fences around them to keep them in. I fully understand that accomplishing things of this nature is akin to herding cats.
/
 
Empirica said:
What would be worse?
(1) World War-3 using 21st Century WMD.
(2) A global pandemic like no other in human history.
(3) The balance of global 'resources' and 'population' hitting a tipping point.

"Plummeting birth rates" is based on the fact that mothers are having fewer babies.

But; population continues to increase simply because there are more and more women having babies.

ie; when world population was one billion and 8+children per mother was the norm, we now have 8 mothers having 2.5 babies each which totals 20 children.

Considering all this along with the infant mortality rate and life expectancy of early 19th Century compared to the 21st Century; it's obvious that the population is indeed, still growing.

All this and still yet the population grows and spreads throughout the planet.

So; what do you believe Western Civilization should do to save itself Dave?

And you believe this is an indication that "overpopulation" will never be a problem?

Okay.....but who or what has the power to stop it?

So it's your contention that the fate of civilization is dependent on science winning a race against an obscure deadline?!

I think we might be in agreement on this one.....And if you were POTUS what would you do about it Nap?
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It would ultimately depend on the situation. I would need to see some research with possible estimates of what will happen if nothing is done and possible solutions.

Edit: Also it would depend on what as POTUS I would have the power to do. For something on an extended time table it would likely be more of Congress being responsible for a solution.
 
The Earth's rate of human population growth is beginning to slow but that is only one dimension of the overpopulation crisis facing humanity. People are on average living longer and are thus consuming more resources throughout their longer lives. This means more pressure on resources and a lowering of the carrying capacity of the Earth.

Increased urbanisation and urban sprawl is gobbling up more and more prime arable land, leaving less arable land to feed bigger and bigger human populations. Climate change and global heating are making more and more land arid and thus less productive for food production. Irrigation is depleting aquifers globally and soil salinisation is a growing challenge. Agriculture is much more intensive today and that intensive farming and ranching is highly dependant on the availability of cheap fossil-fuel based fertilisers. Antibiotics and pesticides which are becoming less and less effective at killing the targeted organisms which they have been designed to kill is another threat to our global food supply. These chemicals along with industrial pollutants and synthetic chemicals are building up in our food webs and poisoning more flora and fauna not to mention more human beings.

Urbanisation is increasing population density for the majority of humans living in cities. This means that urban populations are much more susceptible to disease spread and both endemic and epidemic disease spread. Anti-biotic and anti-viral drugs are one of our key means of managing disease in high density populations but over use by the food and health industries of these drugs is leading to the emergence and proliferation of drug-resistant strains of pathogens which now threaten urban populations like never before since the advent of these medicines.

As more people are becoming dependant on cooperative production and distribution of the necessities for basic survival and thus less self sufficient our species is becoming less able to sustain itself as individuals and small groups and is more dependant on peace, order and governance for survival. If that peace, order and governance is removed by civil strife, war, natural disaster or by elites deciding to cull the human population then mega-die-backs will occur in the human population.

Human-caused extinctions and approaching extinctions among many organisms is occurring already and we may well cause our own extinction to boot. Perpetual resource-based conflicts and wars are now the norm. Rising superpowers to challenge the primacy and global hegemony of the existing monopolar superpower will only accelerate the struggle for resources and the frequency and perhaps the intensity of these conflicts and resource wars. The rising frequency of wars and conflict is creating migrations of human beings which are threatening states and regions with demographic changes and local migratory inundations which could lead to the break down of states and the cooperative productive organisation and infrastructure which is keeping more and more humans alive. These wars also create the conditions under which disease can spread opportunistically under wartime conditions and then spread globally by piggybacking on our global transportation systems.

These are just some of the ways that human population growth threatens not only civilisation but also all life on Earth.

Cheers?
Evilroddy.
 
Empirica said:
And you believe this is an indication that "overpopulation" will never be a problem?
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I think that the decrease in poverty as world population growth is pretty solid proof that resources are not a zero sum game.
Global Extreme Poverty - Our World in Data

The reason why poverty is going down is because innovation and accumulation of capital allows for more food to be grown and for people to climb out of poverty respectively.

Back when Malthus was alive, anyone who wasn't in the upper class lived in poverty. In 2015, less than 10% of people lived in extreme poverty.

The way to calculate the risk of overpopulation is to compare the amount of mouths to feed and how much (the demand) with the amount of food available (the supply). Since the total number of resources aren't increasing, overpopulation believers assume that more people means lower living standards per capita and eventually, a malthusian catastrophe. But the thing that they fail to account for is innovation which increases the efficient use of resources. As a result of the green revolution, India was able to increase its crop yield per hectare to feed its growing population and is currently one of the fastest growing economies in the world.
 
Northern Light said:
Based on the environmental devastation happening, we're already there.

I'm sure this planet could house more humans, but most of us won't be living comfortably or with much social mobility.

Billions of humans vying for 'all the things' is a recipe for disaster.

The only reason for more people is to serve the growth model. Once the growth model caps out - and it will - a lot of people are going to suffer.
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i have to agree

we are already over max

as environmental degradation continues productivity will fall.

only question is will economic collapse or food production collapse happen first. either will have the same result.
 
Overpopulation would be a problem, but it is unlikely that overpopulation will come to be.

Recent publications have discussed the evidence showing that population growth will plateau and eventually begin to plummet as more societies move through the western model of development.
 
JMaximus said:
Overpopulation would be a problem, but it is unlikely that overpopulation will come to be.

Recent publications have discussed the evidence showing that population growth will plateau and eventually begin to plummet as more societies move through the western model of development.
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The ecosystem won't last the amount of time required for every nation on Earth to move through the western model. The U.S., China and India on their own are enough to bankrupt us ecologically for many generations, possibly forever.
 
rickc said:
i have to agree

we are already over max

as environmental degradation continues productivity will fall.

only question is will economic collapse or food production collapse happen first. either will have the same result.
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The world's wealthiest consume about 70% of the annual natural bounty of the planet and they produce the most pollution. Lives of utter excess. The irony is that more humans could be sustained if there were more equal socioeconomic distribution. We aren't looking at a scenario that is truly a tragedy of the commons in the classical Malthusian sense.

The reality is that a small portion of humanity, less than 10%, are using way, way more than they could ever need - and they feel entitled to do so because of something called money. Somewhere along the line they got the impression that if they have money, they can do whatever they want.

This is something that needs to change or we will never survive as a high technology species. At some point it will have to become criminal to take above and beyond what you actually need; to waste; to destroy the natural legacy of this planet.
 
Empirica said:
...

Okay.....but who or what has the power to stop it?

...
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Mankind itself.

By either inaction and or direct action.

For example:

Inaction by mankind aka unfettered reproduction leads to an inability to maintain the needed goods and services that the overpopulation requires to sustain itself leading to war, starvation, poverty eat al on a mass extinction scale.

Direct Action by mankind intentionally retards reproduction to enable the maintenance of the needed goods and services in a continually outpace of the population.
 
Nature has a way of thinning to much of anything out!!!
 
LouC said:
Mankind itself.

By either inaction and or direct action.

For example:

Inaction by mankind aka unfettered reproduction leads to an inability to maintain the needed goods and services that the overpopulation requires to sustain itself leading to war, starvation, poverty eat al on a mass extinction scale.

Direct Action by mankind intentionally retards reproduction to enable the maintenance of the needed goods and services in a continually outpace of the population.
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:) Paul Ehrlich fan?





Anywho, as to the OP: No. If anything, the problem is the opposite - our species is currently scheduled to age and begin shrinking sometime mid century.
 
cpwill said:
:) Paul Ehrlich fan?

Anywho, as to the OP: No. If anything, the problem is the opposite - our species is currently scheduled to age and begin shrinking sometime mid century.
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No fan or Ehrlich's per se. However many of the world level "possibility" scenarios he outlined in his most controversial book have played out in many world regions. He does deserve much credit for bringing those possibilities to the forefront of conversation and our thought.
 
Oborosen said:
Of course it will, eventually. Though with how much our own kind is in love with killing one another, destroying our bodies and the ability of the natural world around us to outright obliterate our numbers. It will most likely be some time before our population really gets to that kind of point.
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Northern Light said:
Based on the environmental devastation happening, we're already there.

I'm sure this planet could house more humans, but most of us won't be living comfortably or with much social mobility.

Billions of humans vying for 'all the things' is a recipe for disaster.

The only reason for more people is to serve the growth model. Once the growth model caps out - and it will - a lot of people are going to suffer.
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spud_meister said:
The problem isn't overpopulation, but overconsumption. More efficient use of resources would alleviate most of the problems people associate with overpopulation.
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TheParser said:
Not "will."

Overpopulation is already a threat to civilization.
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itsforthekids said:
Lefties have been predicting this for decades. They have been wrong for decades.
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Rogue Valley said:
All the Righty, dictator, and resource wars should take care of overpopulation..
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Bodhisattva said:
Russia just tested out a new ICBM...
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Media_Truth said:
Possibly, although China has taken steps to curtail their growth. India is expected to surpass China in population, and that's problematic.

Other countries where this is a serious issue are the middle-Eastern nations. Most of those countries cannot agriculturally sustain their population today, but they still have high birthrates.

The key is agricultural sustainability. Energy and most other resources can be derived from sustainable sources. Everybody has to eat to live. If people can't get food, crime rises drastically.
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BBC - Earth - How many people can our planet really support?
You often hear people citing overpopulation as the single biggest threat to the Earth. But can we really single out population growth in this way? Are there really too many people on our planet?
It is clear to all of us that the planet is not expanding. There is only so much space on Earth, not to mention only so many resources – food, water and energy – that can support a human population. So a growing human population must pose some kind of a threat to the well being of planet Earth, mustn't it? Not necessarily.

This fits with a general pattern that has played out over the past century or so, explains Will Steffen, an emeritus professor with the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. It is not the rise in population by itself that is the problem, but rather the even more rapid rise in global consumption (which of course is unevenly distributed).

This leads to an uncomfortable implication: people living in high-income nations must play their part if the world is to sustain a large human population. Only when wealthier groups are prepared to adopt low-carbon lifestyles, and to permit their governments to support such a seemingly unpopular move, will we reduce the pressure on global climate, resource and waste issues.

According to the article above, Professor Steffen has already placed the burden of "overpopulation" directly on the shoulders of Western Civilization; the same as the Elites have with "Global Warming".
 
plutonium said:
Nature has a way of thinning to much of anything out!!!
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And the human race keeps getting better and better at overriding nature.

Which in this case might just open the door for a 'population' catastrophe.
 
Overpopulation will be a continuing problem in underdeveloped countries.
 
Northern Light said:
The world's wealthiest consume about 70% of the annual natural bounty of the planet and they produce the most pollution. Lives of utter excess. The irony is that more humans could be sustained if there were more equal socioeconomic distribution. We aren't looking at a scenario that is truly a tragedy of the commons in the classical Malthusian sense.

The reality is that a small portion of humanity, less than 10%, are using way, way more than they could ever need - and they feel entitled to do so because of something called money. Somewhere along the line they got the impression that if they have money, they can do whatever they want.

This is something that needs to change or we will never survive as a high technology species. At some point it will have to become criminal to take above and beyond what you actually need; to waste; to destroy the natural legacy of this planet.
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Not quite, Northern Light...The "world's wealthiest" make up less than 1% of the human population.

As a group they consume fewer resources than all other groups, simply because they're such an extreme minority.

And for the same reason, this group has a smaller carbon footprint, that is unless you include their industries which produce products and services and create jobs; all of which benefit civilization.

Might I add, your post sounds very much like the rantings of a "socialist"...Please, say it isn't so!
 
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